


Sticks and Stones

by quiet_one



Series: Cora Shepard [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Other, back story, earth born
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-06 07:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet_one/pseuds/quiet_one
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little girl, playing in a puddle. She makes one decision, and her life changes forever. This is the story of how my Shep Cora grew up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sticks and Stones

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I wrote after a ten year break. It is far from perfect, but this is how Cora came to life for me.

She was playing in a puddle when she first saw them start picking on him. Her shoes, if you could call them that, were full of holes that let all the water in, but still she sat there playing in the murky water, pushing bits of rubbish around with a stick to make pretty patterns in the muck at the bottom.

It was the cry of the little boy that caught her attention, holding it until she looked round and caught sight of the three boys. Two of them were somewhere around her age, as far as she could tell, but the other was much younger, barely half the height of his two tormentors. His small feet were lifted clear off the ground as they started pummelling him, and in that moment Cora made a decision. She went to drop the stick then thought better of it, keeping it clutched tightly in her muddy hand.

At first the boys paid no attention to the skinny, dark haired, girl approaching them with a frown on her dirty face. That was their first mistake. Cora took the first boy down with an accurately aimed jab in the testicles that left him crying on the ground, and then advanced on the second boy. The bully thought, as people usually did at first, that this slip of a girl would be easy to knock down. That was their second mistake.

He dropped the little boy then started towards Cora with a grin on his face, obscenities spilling from his mouth. It was nothing she hadn’t heard before and Cora had learnt long ago that time spent on threats was time wasted.

With vicious accuracy she let a wet stone fly straight at his face. It connected soundly with his front teeth, splitting his bottom lip with a wet pop. This enraged the boy further, and he lunged forwards towards his tormentor in a blind rage, giving Cora time to duck nimbly under his flailing arms and drop him with a swift kick to the back of the knee. Once he was stumbling into the dirt Cora wrestled him into a headlock, using one arm to block off his airway and one hand to grab a fistful of his hair.

"Did you enjoy that?" Cora asked, pulling her arm in tighter against his windpipe when he tried to struggle. "No? Well, I did.”

The little boy stood watching her with wide eyes, blood trickling slowly from his broken nose. There was something in his eyes that forced Cora to focus on him and she felt a sense of shame at herself for what she’d been about to do.

Perhaps beating the crap out of these two, however well deserved, wasn’t the best thing to do in front an already frightened little boy. She dropped the bully in an instant, ignoring his choking gasps, and took the little boy’s hand firmly in her own.

“It’s okay now, they won’t hurt you. Have you got somewhere to go?” Cora asked, scanning quickly around to make sure they hadn’t attracted any unwelcome attention.

The little boy considered her carefully with wide blue eyes, weighing her up before coming to some sort of decision. He started leading her through the dirty streets, never letting his grip loosen as he led her towards home.

The house was just as shabby as all the other buildings in that area of town. Cora knew the area fairly well having scavenged from there on a regular basis over the years and, whilst they were still as dirt poor as everyone else round there, they much higher up the food chain than she was. They at least had somewhere to call home instead of scrubbing from place to place like her.

The little boy led her down a rubbish strewn passage to the back of the house, and was just about to open the door when a woman sprang out, her face contorted with worry.

“Simon? Simon! Dom’s been out looking for you…what happened to your face? Oh Simon…” she cried, kneeling beside the little boy and attempting to dab at his face with a frayed cloth.

Simon squeezed Cora’s hand before saying calmly “Some boys started hitting me, then this girl hit them.”

The woman stood up and looked Cora over with tired looking grey eyes before doing something completely unexpected. “Thank you,” she said. “Would you like to come in?”

Cora’s mouth dropped open for a split second as she took in the fact that this adult hadn’t turned her away, in fact she had actually said thank you to her and invited her in. Nobody had ever said these things to her before in a nice way and it made her instantly suspicious.

Simon must have noticed as he started to tug at her hand, looking up at her and saying “Please! Please come in,” whilst jumping from one foot to the next.

It was the smell of cooking food that changed her mind, her rumbling stomach winning over all the instincts to run away. “OK,” Cora mumbled, allowing herself to be led into the house towards the source of the delicious smell. She couldn’t help but stare round at the kitchen as they entered, unable to remember the last time she’d been in somebody’s house.

They were in what was obviously a kitchen, shabby but spotlessly clean, with odd touches of decoration all over the place. In the middle of the table was a tin filled with flowers made from wire and scrumpled up bits of paper, something beautiful crafted from the most mundane things. It was the nicest place Cora had ever seen.

“Have a seat,” the woman said, gesturing towards a well-scrubbed table with four beaten up chairs around it. “Oh, I’m Ena,” she said brightly over her shoulder. “And you are?”

“I’m...I’m Sarah,” Cora lied carefully. Fear kept her from giving anything specific away just in case this was how all those other kids went missing, taken to some other world that the older kids talked about in hushed voices. Some kids said they’d been taken away by aliens but Cora knew better than that. It was the other humans you had to watch out for.

After some rustling and clanking in a cupboard, Ena brought over a basic first aid kit and a tub of warm water with a flannel in it, plonking herself down next to Simon’s seat at the table. There was something about the way the two of them sat there together that showed this was a regular occurrence in their house.

Simon sat patiently as Ena started dabbing at the congealing blood on his chin, singing some foreign sounding song as she cleaned. Cora watched her work, wondering who this woman was as the soothing strangeness of the song washed over her.

She certainly didn’t seem old enough to be Simon’s mother and there was a strange lilt to her accent that proved she wasn’t from around here. Even her blond hair was in an odd style, although there was something about it that tugged at her memories. Cora was jerked out of her thoughts by Ena who was obviously repeating a question.

“What’s your real name?”

\---

When the little girl didn’t respond Ena rose from the table, fetched a glass of water and a large plate of biscuits then placed it carefully in front of the now frightened girl. She couldn’t have been much more than eight yet there was a toughness to her that suggested she had spent far too looking after herself.

Ena saw them every day, the homeless street kids, and it broke her heart to see so many children alone in the world. When the government did intervene it was simply to throw them into one of the homes or, it was rumoured, institutes off world where they did some sort of experiments.

‘Sarah’ looked at the biscuits then back at her with fear in her bright green eyes. She was covered in bruises, her hair a matted black mop and her skin caked in filth. The sight of her staring at the biscuits in terror made Ena’s heart up before her mind could follow.

“Look, moya dorogaya, you don’t need to be afraid of me okay. I’m not going to tell anybody that you are here. You’re safe here with us,” soothed Ena, crouching beside the girl just in case she tried to run away. “I used to be just like you…until I met Dom. So please don’t be scared, eat the biscuits and I’ll get you some proper food.”

The girls eyes welled with tears, and she managed to choke out “My name is Cora,” before jamming a biscuit in her mouth and hunching protectively over the table.

Ena nodded, patted Cora on the shoulder and got up to finish preparing the evening meal. By the time she’d turned back to look at Cora all the biscuits were gone and all signs of emotion had been stifled. “Well, Cora, if you go wash your hands I’ll get dinner out on the table. Simon?”

Simon bolted back in, carrying a crumpled piece of paper that he placed carefully in front of Cora. “Look!” he said proudly. “I drew you.” The picture was a stick figure with bright green eyes just visible beneath a big black scribble of hair on its head.

“That’s lovely Simon, now could you show Cora to the bathroom?” smiled Ena, whisking the picture off the table and sticking it on what looked like a gallery of scribbles on one wall. “Now off you go.”

\---

He took her hand again, and led her though a small hallway and into a tiny bathroom. It was tiny, lined with tiles that looked as though they’d all been glued on by Simon, a badly put together mosaic of smashed tiles and broken mirrors.

“Cora, Cora, Cora,” chanted Simon, stopping by the sink to wash his grubby hands. “Do you really like my picture Cora?” he asked, suddenly very serious, and staring intently at her face. “Really?”

“Really, I love the picture,” Cora said, smiling down at the little boy as he threw his arms around her. It was no wonder he got in trouble all the time if he went round hugging strangers all the time.

Simon let her go, and ran out of the room yelling “Bye!” at the top of his voice, earning himself a telling off from Ena who was clattering plates now, saying more odd foreign words as she did so.

This was one of the weirdest situations Cora had ever found herself in. Stood in an actual bathroom, washing her hands for the first time in what had been clean water a second ago.

The water in the basin turned brown within seconds, so she risked a glance in the mirror to see just how dirty she was. Oh, it was much worse than she feared. And she appeared to have a moustache. Cora raised her hands to her face then realised it was painted on the mirror, and a laugh burst from her lips.

After removing the worst of the grime, and dirtying two of the threadbare towels, Cora went back into the kitchen where Ena was distributing four heaped plates of food around the table.

“Maybe after this we can think about finding you somewhere to sleep, hmm kotëhok,” she said to Cora.

Cora was just getting around to figuring out what on earth Ena had just said and why there were four plates on the table when the back door swung open, and a tall brown haired man walked in. He went straight over to Ena and planted a huge kiss on her lips before staring round at the room with a huge smile on his face. His eyes darted round until he found Simon. Then he noticed Cora.

She froze for a second, her heart thudding in her throat as she realised this would probably be the end of this little adventure. At least she’d got a wash and a stomach full of delicious biscuits, that would make her night a little easier.

Ena’s first words on their return crept into her mind. This must be Dom, the one out searching for Simon.

“Ah, I see we have a visitor. Did you return Simon to us?” he asked conversationally, sitting down and throwing his coat on the floor as he started on the plate of food.

“Cora hit the bad boys didn’t you?” Simon chimed in, getting a frown from Ena and an exasperated sigh from Dom. Once he’d finished his mouthful of food Dom got up from his hair and crouched next to Simon’s, resting one hand on the little boys head.

“Now what have we said about running off? Hey?” he asked, glancing up at Ena who was picking his coat up from the floor with an exaggerated sigh.

Simon shrugged, his bottom lip giving a slight quiver as he avoided Dom’s gaze.

“Simon, if you run off you get hurt. Promise me you won’t do it again, ok?”

This time Simon met Dom’s gaze, and he nodded sombrely, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand then sticking his hand straight into his plate of food.

With a slight grin Dom got back onto his chair, watching Ena shove cutlery into Simon’s hands before turning his attention back to Cora.

“Where did you find him?” he asked, forking a dumpling into his mouth then sighing with pleasure.

“Over on twenty third street” Cora said, keeping her head down as she picked up her cutlery and gave the food an experimental stab. She had no idea what the food was nor did she care that it was blisteringly hot. It had been so long since she’d had a hot meal that she started cramming the food down as fast as it would go.

Dom glanced over at Ena who gave him the smallest of shrugs, holding each other’s gazes for a second. They knew each other well enough by now to know exactly what the other was feeling and without a word Dom reached over to squeeze Ena’s hand. She gave a small smile, then dipped her head as Cora looked up.

“Twenty Third Street? That’s further than usual. You need someone to keep you out of trouble, stop you getting another broken arm. At least it was only the nose this time,” Dom groused jokingly, shaking his head.

“Cora could keep me out of trouble,” squeaked Simon, and this time when Cora looked up everyone was watching her.

“Well, you’re welcome to stay here if you’d like,” Dom said. “Ena could always do with more help, and you’ve seen what Simon gets himself into.”

This was the first thing that stopped Cora eating, her fork pausing midway to her mouth as her eyes flickered from Ena to Dom. Is this what Ena had meant earlier, before Dom came in? The thought of actually staying somewhere with food, shelter and people who weren’t going to hurt her made Cora feel a little dizzy. Of course she wanted to stay but why would they do this? What if they got to know her and threw her out because she was so horrible?

Eventually it was Simon who made up her mind, forcing her frozen brain to respond. He threw his arms around and her waist, and burrowed his head into her side, clinging on tightly and saying what sounded like a very muffled “Please!”.

“I’d like that, if that’s okay.” Cora put her fork down and looked at Ena. “But I can’t cook or anything, maybe I could…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Ena said, smiling as she reached over to give Cora’s hand a quick squeeze. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Good. Now, Simon will you help me with these dishes?” Dom asked, getting to his feet and starting to clear the table. “I’m sure I can find you something nice while we’re over there. Cora, can you carry the glasses?”

She did so, finding herself part of a small team as they cleared the table together. Dom washed dishes, Ena dried and tidied away whilst Simon did more colouring at the table. Cora fetched things for them then sat down to watch Simon, glancing through the window as she watched the day draw to a close.

For the first time was inside one of those lighted windows that she had always watched so enviously from the outside. The night wasn’t nipping at her with cold, her stomach was full and her heart felt curiously light as she looked round at Simon colouring and Dom standing with Ena by the sink, murmuring to each other.

It was at that moment that Cora started to think that perhaps people weren’t so awful, and that perhaps the universe was a nice place after all, even after everything she’d seen. Cora grabbed a piece of paper and started to draw flowers in big clumsy lines.

“There,” she said, scrawling her name and pinning it up on the wall. “That’s much better.”

Cora was home.

**Author's Note:**

> moya dorogaya - my dear  
> kotëhok - kitten


End file.
